User interfaces provide a mechanism that allows human beings to interact with computer systems. A wide variety of user interfaces exist. User interfaces may include menus, windows, buttons, tables, icons and a variety of other graphical means for representing functionality, operations, or elements of a computer program.
A user interface specification is a document that captures the details of the user interface into a written document. The specification covers all possible actions that an end user may perform and all visual, auditory and other interaction elements. The user interface specification is the main source of implementation information for how the software should work.
When a user interface is updated (e.g., modifying the name of a button), the user interface specification may need to be updated as well. Corresponding updates to the user interface specification is especially important in lean and agile software development, which may involve iterative and incremental development, since the user interface specification is used for testing the user interface throughout the development process.
However, in many cases, the user interface specification fails to be updated. As a result, the user interface specification becomes stale and inaccurate.
Attempts have been made to update the user interface specification by manually examining the user interface for changes, and then, after noticing changes, generating a new user interface specification by translating the macros (rules or patterns that specify how a certain input sequence should be mapped to an output sequence) and program instructions of the user interface code (e.g., markup languages, such as HyperText Markup Language (HTML)) into a newly generated user interface specification after recording the macros and program instructions. However, whenever the code for the user interface language is modified, the user would be required to re-record all of the macros and program instructions of the user interface code to generate an updated user interface specification. Such a process is inefficient and time-consuming.